Give Me a Scone
by Darkover
Summary: Giles decides to prove something to Buffy.


15

Title: "Give Me a Scone"

Author: Darkover, a.k.a. TheQueenly1

Rating: PG

Summary: Giles decides to prove something to Buffy.

Spoilers: Nothing specific. This takes place some time in season four or five, but before Dawn joined the show. Buffy has begun college, but has not become involved with Riley or the Initiative. In my version of things, she won't. Things are AU after this.

Disclaimers: As far as I know, all the characters of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon. I do not own them, alas; if I did, Buffy and Giles would have been together as a couple long ago. I am a B/G 'shipper, and proud of it! Moreover, as far as I know, "The Logical Song" was written and sung by Supertramp, and can be found on their album "Breakfast in America." No infringement of any copyright is intended or should be inferred. I wish only to spread B/G goodness to all, so please do not sue me!

Author's Notes: This story was written in response to a challenge. The specifics of the challenge will be revealed at the end of the story.

Feedback: As always, would be greatly appreciated!

Exasperated, Giles snatched up the remote, aimed it at the television, and pressed a button.

"Hey!" Buffy exclaimed from her position on the floor before his sofa, where she sat with her legs crossed and an almost-emptied bowl of popcorn on her lap. "It was just getting interesting!"

"Well, I've seen enough," he retorted. "Who writes this absurd nonsense for television, anyway? If one based one's beliefs on what Englishmen are like solely from viewing the idiot box, one would think we were all stuffy, straight-laced, and emotionally repressed."

"Oh, of course we all know that isn't true," Buffy said, rolling her eyes.

Giles looked down at her, frowning a little. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Come on, Giles," she answered, laughing. "No offense, but when we first met, I didn't think you had any emotional response other than 'stuffy.' You're also the guy who rehearsed by talking to a chair before asking someone out on a date. Emotions—so not your thing."

She stopped talking when she saw his expression, which was subdued and a little hurt. This worried Buffy; she had only been teasing. She had not wanted to make him feel bad, so she said hurriedly; "Hey, that was just in the beginning. You're Mr. Personality now."

"I don't think…" her Watcher began, and then fell silent.

"Giles, relax," Buffy said quickly. "It's just—I know a lot of it is the whole stiff-upper-lip thing. Also, you're smart." He looked at her blankly. She elaborated, "I mean you intellectualize things, so you can deal. And so you can explain them to your Slayer." She gave him her most winning smile.

He gazed down at her, his expression unreadable. "Is that what you think of me?" he asked quietly. "That I am nothing more than some bookish, stuffy prat?"

"Giles, no! I just meant…"

He rose from the sofa and moved to the center of the room, not looking back at her as he said; "Buffy, I believe I have watched enough television for this evening."

"Are you sure? I mean, watching is what you do best, right?" The only response to this halfhearted quip was Giles removing his glasses and polishing them. Buffy pushed the popcorn bowl to one side, straightened her legs and stood up. "Giles?" she said, a bit apprehensively.

He replaced his glasses without acknowledging her. Still without turning to face his Slayer, he said quietly; "I think you should go home now, Buffy."

She was speechless. Her Watcher had never thrown her out before. "Giles!"

"Please, Buffy." His voice was quiet, without expression. "I'm afraid I'm a little tired."

"Giles, I wasn't trying to…" She let it trail off when he still did not turn to face her. "Okay, if that's what you want," she mumbled, and picked up her purse.

Moments later she was outside, hearing his door being shut firmly and locked behind her. Bewilderment flooded her. What the hell just happened here? Shaking her head, she hoisted her bag to her shoulder, pulled out Mr. Pointy, and strode off into the night. I think I'll do something nice and uncomplicated, like slaying. I'll talk to Giles tomorrow. Maybe he'll be out of his weird mood by then.

Getting back to Giles on the following day proved to be more difficult than Buffy had anticipated. She overslept and had no time to call him before rushing off to classes. Then the professor in her first class surprised the students with a pop quiz. The lecturer in Buffy's second class of the day was excruciatingly dull, but the students had been warned that everything he said would be on the exam, so Buffy had been forced to pay attention anyway. He was so boring that Buffy almost welcomed the small earthquake that shook the campus. By California standards the quake was not really that bad, but it was enough so that her afternoon class was cancelled. That should have been of the good—Buffy had been glad of the chance to call Giles and find out how he was doing, maybe asking if the quake was in any way Hellmouth-related as an excuse for her calling—but as she rushed back to the dorm, she had been intercepted by that T.A. from Professor Walsh's class—what was his name? Riley Quinn? Finn? He told her he was concerned about her, and would she let him take her out to dinner, or at least for coffee. Any other time and Buffy might have been interested, as he was good-looking in a wholesome sort of way, but now she just found him annoying. He was so obviously coming on to her, and she just had other things on her mind. Things like her Watcher.

"Will!" Buffy said as she burst in on her roommate. "Glad to see you're okay."

The redhead glanced over at her friend, blinking in surprise. "Sure I'm okay, Buffy. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I dunno. It's just…" The Slayer let it trail off, unable to explain the feeling of emotional vulnerability she always had whenever things were not well between herself and her Watcher. "Where's the phone? I gotta call Giles."

"Isn't that it over there?" Willow said, pointing to the nightstand.

Buffy snatched up the cellular phone. She was just about to punch in Giles' number when she saw something on her pillow.

It was a flower, a single rose. Not a red one, but a white one, exquisitely tinged with red, as though someone had taken the purity of a white rose and delicately touched the edges of its petals with blood. It seemed like an oddly appropriate flower for a Slayer. There was a note attached, her name written upon it. Her call temporarily forgotten, Buffy replaced the phone on the nightstand and then picked up the note.

Angel? was her first thought. She hoped not. Flowers and notes on your pillow were more the sort of thing Angelus might have done, as a prelude to a far less pleasant surprise. Besides, Buffy had reached the point where she no longer constantly thought about Angel. In fact, on the occasions when he did cross her mind, she often found herself wondering exactly why she had once been so crazy about him.

She unfolded the note and read: "My dear Buffy, I am afraid that I may have left you with the wrong impression last night. Please allow me to pick you up at half-past six this evening to take you for coffee at the Expresso Pump. Very sincerely yours, G."

Buffy was smiling as she finished the note—Giles couldn't be too mad at her, if he was sending her a flower and a note like this. Then her smile faded and an expression of bemusement replaced it. Sweet, but weird. Giles doesn't do things like this. And why would he want to take me to a coffee shop, instead of having tea at his place?

"What's wrong, Buff?" Willow's voice broke in on her thoughts. "You look like you're trying to smile and frown at the same time."

"Uhmm…" She waved the note vaguely at her best friend while carefully picking up the rose and inhaling its fragrance. "It's a note. From Giles. He wants to take me to a coffee shop, for some reason. It's just given me a wiggins, is all."

"Why?"

"Giles doesn't do things like this, Will. This is a romantic gesture, and he isn't romantic."

"How do you know?" her friend asked bluntly.

"What?"

The redhead sighed. "Buffy, sometimes I wonder if you really know Giles at all."

"Hey!" Buffy said, stung. "What's that supposed to mean? He's my Watcher."

"That's right. He's devoted his entire life to you, and if I knew a man who did something like that for me, I'd take the trouble to really look at him once in awhile."

"Willow, I don't know what you're talking about. This is Giles."

"He's also a man, Buffy. Maybe he wants you to see him as one."

The Slayer felt as if she had suddenly stepped into some kind of Bizarro World. "Of course he's a man. I know that."

"Oh, really, Buffy? When did you notice that? When you were saying 'Eeeuuw' to the idea of Faith finding him attractive? When you called him 'old and gross' because he was having sex with a woman?"

"That was different," Buffy said, but her words sounded hollow to her own ears. Why had she said that, anyway? Especially when, at the time, she hadn't really thought it was gross at all—she had just resented the fact that he was paying attention to someone other than herself. And I really didn't like seeing Olivia parade around in his shirt. She added: "Giles knows I don't mean anything by that."

"I'm not so sure, Buffy. I think sometimes you hurt his feelings without meaning to."

"Hey, what is this?" she protested. "Pick-On-the-Slayer-Week? First Giles throws me out last night—"

Willow sat up straight. "What? Giles threw you out?"

"Well, not exactly," she said defensively, wondering even as she spoke if she was defending her Watcher's conduct, or her own. "He—he kinda asked me to leave, is all. He said he was tired," she added quickly.

The redhead was frowning slightly. "I don't understand. I've seen Giles so tired he has to drink cup after cup of the strongest coffee available just to stay awake, because you weren't back from doing something slay-worthy, or because he was researching something for you. He's never too tired where you're concerned. What happened, exactly?"

Buffy told her of the conversation that had passed between Slayer and Watcher the previous evening. It didn't seem like such a big deal, but somehow, the way her best friend looked at her made her squirm. It was like the expression her Mom would assume just before she was about to say, in an admonishing tone; "Buffy, I am so disappointed in you."

"Oh, Buffy," Willow said quietly, in exactly such a tone.

"What?" the Slayer said a little belligerently, now feeling a bit put-upon. "C'mon, Will, you met Giles even before I did—you know what he was like! He was so stuffy, I was amazed there was room for him to fit into his shirts."

"That was then, Buff. This is now."

"Well, I don't get this! What did I say that was so horrible?"

"Give him a chance, Buffy. That's all I'm saying. That," the redhead added mischievously, "and open your eyes. Giles is not only smart and dedicated, he's pretty sexy."

The blonde rolled her eyes. "Yeah, 'Giles' and 'sexy' in the same sentence. Like that's ever gonna happen."

"If you can't see that Giles is sexy, maybe there's something wrong with your Slayer vision," Willow retorted, in a tone that, for her, was almost sharp.

"C'mon, Will. I know you had a crush on the guy when we were in high school, but like you said, that was then, this is now. I though you'd outgrown that." She meant her words to be teasing, but the affronted look her best friend gave her surprised Buffy.

"I have grown up, Buffy. Sometimes I wonder if you have." With those words, her best friend strode out of their room and out of the dorm, leaving a speechless Slayer gazing after her.

"So, this is the Expresso Pump." Buffy glanced around with mild interest as Giles pulled out a chair for her and she sat down. She had never been here before, and most of the customers seemed slightly older, more adult, than what she expected—although there were a fair number of college-aged people. The place was more like a non-alcoholic club than the typical coffee shop, and there was an air of anticipation.

"Do you like it?" her Watcher asked, seating himself across from her at the table. Buffy glanced at him, surprised at the seriousness of his tone. It was as if his opinion of this place really mattered to him.

"Sure. I haven't tasted my latte or my cake yet—" Giles had insisted on treating her to both, when he had seen her drooling over the house specialty, double mocha fudge cake. "But I'm sure they're delicious. I like this place. It's cool, without being funky. The customers are older, without being old."

"Er…good." Giles fell silent, and Buffy wondered if she had managed to offend him again. His hand lay on the table, palm down, and she impulsively reached out and covered it with her own. He gave it a startled glance, but did not move away, and his gaze rose quickly to her face.

"Giles, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings last night," she said sincerely. "You know me, not so much on the thinking before I speak. The last thing I ever want to do is offend my Watcher. What would I do without you?"

"That's quite all right, Buffy. Thank you." She couldn't read much from his tone, and facing her, the light from the nearby open-mike area fell on his glasses, making them reflective and not letting her see his eyes. Unable to tell what he was feeling, she felt flustered, and continued on quickly.

"'Cause you're important to me, you know. More important—"

"As your Watcher," Giles said, in that same indecipherable tone.

"As my Watcher. As my friend. As someone I care about." Buffy felt increasingly frustrated. This was not going the way she had planned. She was being all apologetic, not even sure exactly what she was sorry for, and yet Giles was so distant he might have been in another room.

"Giles," she blurted, "why did you send me the rose?"

The Englishman removed his hand from hers—but very gently, and only so that he could remove his glasses. He began to polish them, speaking to her without making eye contact. "I…hoped that you might like it. I trust that you did not dislike it. I didn't mean to upset you."

"God, no, Giles—I'm not upset! I thought it was the sweetest thing." From the hope that flared in his eyes, she knew she was on the right track. Quickly, she added, "It's just not the sort of thing I'm used to. From you. You've never done anything like that for me before."

He replaced his glasses. "You have changed, Buffy. You're a young woman now. I like to believe I have changed, as well."

Before she could ask him what he meant by that, a woman who seemed to be the shop's proprietor approached their table. "Almost time, Rupert."

Giles turned his head to face the woman, and Buffy saw, to her amazement, a flash of light off a silver earring. Ohmigod, Giles is wearing an earring! That's gotta be a sign of the Apocalypse!

"Thank you, Rachel," Buffy heard him say to the woman. As she retreated from their table, Giles turned his attention back to a dumbfounded Buffy. "Perhaps this will illustrate my meaning a little better," he told her with a smile as he rose from his seat.

He approached the open area with the microphone and seated himself on the stool. Someone presented him with a guitar, which he spent a few moments tuning. From the appreciative but impatient comments and smatters of applause, this was something he had done before, and clearly more than a few people in the crowd were looking forward to his performance.

Giles began to sing. His voice was light but at the same time powerful, and Buffy found herself drawn and held by the sound of both his singing and his playing. He had begun a song that she was not familiar with, and it went like this;

"When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful/A miracle, Oh, it was beautiful, magical…"

Like your singing, she thought, entranced.

"And all the birds in the trees, well, they'd be singing so happily/Joyfully, playfully, watching me."

Watching the Watcher. My Watcher.

"But then they sent me away to teach me how to be Sensible/ Logical, Responsible, Practical./ And They showed me a world where I could be so Dependable, Clinical, Intellectual, Cynical."

"They" who? Buffy wondered. She had a feeling that Giles' choice of song was deliberate, that there was something he wanted to use it to tell her, so she tried hard to understand. Still, it's hard to concentrate with that sexy voice of his pouring over me like warm honey.

"There are times when all the world's asleep/The questions run too deep/for such a simple man…"

You must be kidding, Giles. I'm beginning to realize, they're nothing simple about you.

He was looking right at her as he sang the next words, as if they were of special urgency or significance to him.

"Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned/I know it sounds absurd/ but please tell me who I am."

My Watcher? My friend? Something else? Buffy could feel her heart beginning to pound a little harder. Trying to work it out, she almost missed the next lyrics.

"Now, watch what you say, or they'll be calling you a Radical/Liberal, Fanatical, Criminal./Won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!"

Is that what you felt like, Giles, during all those years of wearing tweed? For it had occurred to Buffy that she had not seen Giles wear a tweed suit in a long time. He had worn those suits like a uniform. Maybe they were. The uniform of the Watchers' Council. A bunch of guys like Quentin Travers…how could he ever have felt free? A guy like Giles, who used to conjure demons and then didn't try to turn his Slayer into a robot, must have been regarded as a real rebel by the other Watchers. She found herself smiling at that thought. We showed 'em, didn't we, Giles?

Her Watcher was looking directly at her as he sang the final lines.

"At night, when all the world's asleep/The questions run so deep/for such a simple man./Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned/I know it sounds absurd/But please tell me who I am."

Giles sang the last line again, making it sound like a question, although it was nearly drowned out by the delighted cries and frenzied applause. Giles' gaze was still locked with Buffy's, but when the person who had initially handed him the guitar approached, he seemed to rouse himself, glancing away from his Slayer and surrendering the guitar with a polite thank you. Buffy stood up quickly as he approached their table.

"You want to know who you are, Rupert Giles? I'll tell you. You are the smartest, strongest, sexiest, kindest, and most devoted man I've ever known. You've changed, but so have I. You're still my Watcher—and your Slayer wants you."

"Buffy, I know who I am, really. I just want—" In the past he would have begun to stammer at this point, but now both his voice and his gaze were steady. "—to know what you think of me. How you feel about me."

"What I feel can't be expressed here, Giles." She grinned at him. "Not without our getting arrested."

A Ripperish glint appeared in his green eyes. "Indeed."

"That's right," she said, taking his arm. "Let's go back to your place, and you can prove to me how wrong television writers are."

"How wrong…?" Giles made the mental connection to their conversation of the previous evening, and then grinned. "Yes. Quite."

"I hope you know you're the only guy I'd ever leave behind chocolate for," she told him as they headed for the door. Then she looked up at him, the teasing gone from her voice as she added quietly; "I love you, Rupert Giles."

He returned her gaze with an intensity she had never seen before. "I love you, Buffy Summers."

Applause from the other patrons of the Expresso Pump followed them as they went out into the night, and into their future together.

Author's Note: This story was written in response to the following challenge, set by B/G fan Adele Heidenreich; "One evening while watching TV with Buffy, Giles comments on the fact that he is sick and tired of seeing British characters portrayed as being stuffy and emotionally retarded. Buffy laughs at him and points out that in spite of the fact that he has done some major improvements since he arrived, he leaves a lot to be desired (make the mocking playful—not hurtful please). Giles decides to prove her wrong. Guidelines but not written in stone: Setting: season 5—preferably no Riley (sorry can't stand the guy) Rating: preferably R-NC17 (come on guys crank it up a notch—we all love it.) Hope to see some responses!"


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